Turn a bottle of tequila around and, somewhere among the required information, you will often find three letters followed by four numbers. NOM 1579. NOM 1414. NOM 1123. For most shoppers, those numbers are easy to overlook. For tequila drinkers who know what they mean, they can be one of the most interesting pieces of information on the bottle. The brand on the front tells you what tequila you bought. The NOM helps tell you which authorized producer made it. The NOM number is tied to the registration of an authorized tequila producer operating under Mexico's official tequila standard. It is not a rating, an age statement, a batch number or a secret score. Most importantly, it is not necessarily unique to one brand. And that's where the detective work begins.
It Does Tell You The Authorized Producer The number accompanies the official NOM mark and identifies the registered tequila producer.
It Can Reveal Shared Production Homes Multiple brands can be registered to the same authorized producer and carry the same NOM.
It Does Not Tell You The Recipe A shared NOM does not mean two brands are identical, taste alike or follow the same product specification.
First, What Is “NOM”? A Number Connected to Certification Tequila is governed by an official Mexican standard: NOM-006-SCFI-2012. To produce certified tequila, an authorized producer must satisfy the regulatory requirements governing production, facilities, labeling and the use of the Tequila Appellation of Origin. The producer receives a registration number that appears with the official NOM identification on tequila labels. So when enthusiasts say, “What's the NOM?” they are really asking something like: Who is the authorized producer behind this bottle? That is very different from asking who owns the brand, designed the label or markets the tequila. One production facility can make tequila for more than one brand. Our first pair makes that visible.
NOM 1579 · Blanco G4 Blanco Tequila One brand produced under NOM 1579 — and a useful reminder that the producer behind the bottle can be different from the brand identity on the front. Explore Bottle
NOM 1579 · Blanco ArteNOM Seleccion de 1579 Blanco ArteNOM makes the production connection unusually visible: the NOM itself is part of the expression's identity, pointing directly toward the distillery behind it. Explore Bottle
So Why Should You Care? Because Brands Can Share a Production Home The tequila aisle is full of brand identities. Different bottles. Different stories. Different founders. Different packaging. The NOM lets you look underneath that layer and see something about production. That does not mean brands sharing a NOM are somehow interchangeable. It simply gives you another question to ask. Do other tequilas come from this producer? Does the producer have a recognizable approach? Does this brand specify anything unusual about how its tequila is made? The NOM isn't the answer to whether you'll like a tequila. It is a doorway into learning more about who made it. And NOM 1414 gives us another perfect example.
NOM 1414 · Plata Siempre Tequila Plata Siempre gives us one expression connected to NOM 1414 — a production relationship that is largely invisible if you only read the front of the bottle. Explore Bottle
NOM 1414 · Blanco Lost Lore Blanco Lost Lore carries a completely different brand identity while sharing the same authorized producer registration — exactly the kind of connection the NOM helps uncover. Explore Bottle
One More Complication A Brand's NOM Can Change This is where tequila history gets especially interesting. A brand is not necessarily permanently tied to a single NOM. Production relationships can change, and the CRT's registry can show the same brand name associated with more than one authorized producer. That means two bottles carrying the same brand name but different NOM numbers may point to different production homes. The label can become a timestamp in a brand's production history. For collectors and curious drinkers, that can make older bottles particularly interesting. A change in NOM gives you a reason to investigate whether anything else changed with it. Again, the number does not tell you whether one version is better. It tells you that something about the production relationship deserves a closer look.
How to Use the Number Turn the Bottle Around The next time you're standing in front of a tequila shelf, don't stop at the front label. Find the NOM. Then look at another bottle. And another. You may discover two brands you never associated with one another carrying the same producer registration. That doesn't solve the tequila for you. It gives you a better question. The front tells you the brand. The NOM tells you where to start digging. From there, look for the things that actually shape what ends up in your glass: agave, cooking, fermentation, distillation, proof, maturation and the choices of the people making it. Four little digits won't tell you everything about a tequila. They can tell you where the story behind the label begins.
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